Top Five… Suckiest Superhero Team Members

So the Avengers have well and truly assembled, and hopefully the six-superpowered heroes will collectively manage to deafeat that rather unimposing bad guy in the silly costume (who Thor alone beat singlehandedly last time round). But who will Loki be most worried about? Is it his demi-god half brother who controls lightning… or that guy with great eyesight who can shoot a bow and arrow real good? To be fair, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye more than holds his own against his better-endowed brethren… which is more than we can say for these duds…

5. Silk Spectre II – Watchmen

Um, I think you should probably check on the oven…

We have the techie one, the crazy one, the murderous one, the smart one, the one who actually has superpowers, and… the hot one? Alright, she can throw a punch, but wearing that impractical a costume – including 10” heels – is just taking the p**s. Other skills include sleeping with other members of the team, including the guy who has the ability to destroy the planet, because introducing any sort of emotional instabilty there can only result in good things, right?

4. Aquaman – Justice League of America

My other car is a fjord

This film hasn’t been made yet, but since it is physically impossible for comic book movies not to make money, you can be bloody well sure it soon will be. In a gang that features such near onmipotent members as Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, its hard to make your talents stand out. But when you are already the butt of jokes – even among comic nerds – it is very likely you are destined to be the film’s comic relief. Unless the film is based on an underwater union dispute, where strong swinmming ability and fish negotiation skills will be in high demand.

3. Sue Storm – Fantastic Four

‘Phew, somebody light a match a match… C’mere for a sec Johnny’

The Human Torch must have thought it was pretty feckin funny when the gang opened their lucky bags to see what powers they got. While he got to burst into flames and fly – not to mention an awesome ‘flame on!’ catchphrase – Ben ‘The Thing’ Grimm became deformed by a skin disease, Reed ‘Mr Fantastic’ Richards could reach for the salt even if it was at the other end of the table, while Sue became the Invisible Girl. Invisibility’s not all that bad a power, it’s just that it can be tough to depict. To avoid empty panels in the comics for example, it meant drawing her with a stupid dotted outline. It also meant in the films, whenever Jessica Alba wanted to use her force fields, she had to look like she was trying desperately hard to fart.

2. Jubilee – X-Men

Pew pew pew! Swoosh! Yay! Bring on Apocalypse!

It’s a case of blink and you’ll miss her in the x-men film. In fact it’s a case of blink three times and you’ll miss her in all three. Thankfully never promoted above cameos for any part of the trilogy, the annoyingly shrill ‘hip’ teen in her yellow trench coat has an even more annoying power: fireworks. Yes she musters the power of streams of brightly coloured lights from her fingers, which only ever serves to distract or pester supervillains in the cartoon. also shares a special ‘bond’ with Wolverine in the cartoon, which thankfully never materialised on screen, as Hugh Jackman would have surely loped her head off.

1. Tom Sawyer – The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

‘…..well, it’s more exciting than watching LXG I suppose….’

Captain Nemo, Dr Jeckyll/Mr Hyde, Allan Quatermain, Mina Harker, the Invisible Man, Tom Sawyer… wait, what? Tom Sawyer? Alan Moore’s excellent graphic novel brought together some of the greatest heroes from classic literature, and the subsequent not-quite-as-excellent-film threw in a few more for good measure. Dorian Gray we can forgive with the whole immortality thing, but Tom Sawyer? Doesn’t he just arse about beside rivers? In the film he’s just a younger less cool version of Allan Quartermain. Rumour has it he was shoehorned in because American audiences wouldn’t go see it unless there was a yank in it. Turns out audiences just didn’t want to see it full stop.

2 Responses to “Top Five… Suckiest Superhero Team Members”

Haha! I am SO happy Jubilee is in this list! Whenever I talk about the X-Men to my other half and friends (surprisingly; more than one might think), I never fail to mention how terrible Jubilee is. Fireworks, really?